Discourses of Students Studying in a Private University on Being a “Private University Student”

The aim of this study is to examine the explanations of students studying in a private (foundation) university on being a “private university student”. Within this scope, in-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 19 students from different private universities so as to find out the discursive resources of their explanations. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed. Interview texts were analyzed through discourse analysis. As a result of the analysis, the explanations of the participants were separated into two main categories; “discourses on the private university” and “discourses on being a private university student”. Within the first category, two themes were obtained; “the quality of education” and “accessibility”. Within the second category, two themes were obtained; “unsuccessful/insufficient student” and “privileged/wealthy student”. Additionally, a typical ideological dilemma was seen in the explanations of the participants; “self-negation versus self-equalization”. The results of the study manifest that the participants explain “the private university” and “being a private university student” within a negative framework. Even though some advantages of private universities were mentioned, they were mostly described more negatively than public universities with regard to “the quality of education and academicians”. Relatedly, private university students were described as “unsuccessful/insufficient students” in comparison with public university students.